Request:Potez 840 F-BMCY

[wadoki]

I have a vague recollection of seeing F-BMCY in Speke but can anyone supply a date?
The Potez 840/841/842 was an unusual(and unsuccessful) design.............think Jetstream with four small turboprops.No wonder it failed commercially.
A factory was built in Baldonnel(at Irish tax-payers expense)for series production but closed in`68 without producing a single example.
Speke-EZY reckons it visited at least once on a Rugby charter...........given that it had only 18 seats and Rugby players tend to be big guys this must have been close to mtow!I don`t think they bothered with subs in those days!
Time frame is 1974-29/3/81 when w/o.The fuselage survives completely intact in the Shetlands.

[viscount]

Hi Wadoki,

All my reference books, even my PC are in storage, otherwise I'd be able to dig out a complete answer. Actually I seem to recall the Potez passed through a number of occasions, en route between Baldonnel/Casement (near Dublin) and France. If memory serves me right, Potez established a factory near Casement for while, and the Irish Air Corps had Potez Magisters to be maintained - but that may well be a little later. The answer is certainly after the end of 1971, as I am currently working on 1970 and 1971 Logs on my Laptop.

While I don't have mine available, anyone with access to any edition of Phil Butler's Liverpool Airport History book should be able, from one of the Appendices to find and provide this thread with the first visit by type of the Potez 840.

[robaero]

There used to be one on a Fire Dump in Scotland either in the Shetland Isles or Aberdeen Airport.

[8miles27]

Unfortunately this aircraft does not appear in the 'First Visits' appendix to Phil Butlers book.

[viscount700]

Noted as my first and only sighting of the type in the UK, F-BMCY at Speke 22 October 1975 - no operator recorded. This was when heading for LHR by Cambrian 1-11 so probably early morning and therefore the 840 likely came in the night before.

[wadoki]

Wow................good stuff Viscount700!! found it in an old log book noted on 22nd,23rd and 24 Oct`75

It would appear that the FrancoIrish facility intended for production of the ill-starred commuterliner did get used as a maintenance facility for the IAC`s Magisters.Not a completele waste of Punts after all.

[wadoki]

In answer to Robaero:
She suffered a landing accident at Sumburgh in `81 and was declared dbr.She languished on the fire dump for years.Remarkably she was rescued recently and can now be described as preserved at North Roe on Shetland(a good distance from Sumburgh).Photos taken last autumn show her looking quite healthy.

[bluerigger1]

I have just found an old log book from longer ago than I care to admit too.
I recorded F-BMCA at Speke on 24 October 1975. On the same visit I also logged two Alidair Viscounts; G-BDIK and N501TL.Both were regular visitors I seem to recall.

[viscount]

THE POTEZ 840 VISITS TO LIVERPOOL AIRPORT

Just shows how the memory can embroider detail over time, merging facts acquired overtime.

PHB's logs books and my library of MAS 'Flypast' magazines are now out of store and safely re-instated on bookshelves, so available to find the facts, as recorded at the time.

The only year Potez 840 F-BMCY visited Speke was in 1975. First visit was on 24th May, routing f&t Paris/Le Bourget and a second visit the following day, again f&t Paris/Le Bourget. Flypast records the operator as 'Darta', but provides no clue as to why the visits. A third visit in the year brought the aircraft in on 22nd October, not leaving until 25th, again routed f&t Paris/Le Bourget.

So no irregular visits over a period of years, nor any connection with Potez and their Dublin factory (which was back in 1968).

[Deleted]

It may well have been a straightforward charter, or possibly a demo. F-BMCY was a demo aircraft at one point in its life. Darta was formed in 1971 as a charter company and had a small fleet of disparate aircraft, including at one stage a couple of Airbuses, based in Le Bourget. I once had some dealings with them. They closed down a few years ago.

[Beemer]

"I've asked Brian 'Beemer' to upload and post this image of F-BMCY Potez 840 unmistakeably at Speke in 1975. Brian 'Viscount' unexpectedly came across this one while scanning 130 mostly Agfa transparencies taken by the late Phil Duckett at Speke in the 70s, and feels the discovery is worth posting now, rather than waiting for while he cleans up the others and posts it himself. Photo credit is to the 'Phil Duckett Collection'. Nice one Phil."

F-BMCY by Beemer328i, on Flickr

[Beemer]

They look like Caravelle style windows.

[viscount]

Thanks Beemer for posting the photo I e-mailed to you.

The Potez 840 is proof that French designers in the '50s/'60s either got it right, or got it very wrong. Bit of a Heron meets Jetstream 1, seating for 18 executives, with French quirks the triangle window and diminutive Turbomeca Astazou engines thrown in.

Delighted that a clear photo of the aircraft at Liverpool has been discovered to illustrate 'Wadoki's' original information request, even though 8 months later. To cross reference with another thread running currently, this was an Agfa transparency, scanned at max dpi on Canon scanner, having been well pre-cleaned, just one speck removed (although I now spot another!) on Picasa. Minor brightening, but no straightening, cropping or sharpening. Passed onto 'Beemer' as a full pixel file as an e-mail attachment, then downloaded and size down graded to 1024 on posting via Flickr.

[Deleted]

Apr 14, 2017 15:25:23 GMT 1 robaero said:

There used to be one on a Fire Dump in Scotland either in the Shetland Isles or Aberdeen Airport.

It's the same aircraft and a photo of it at Shetland appears in the Wikipedia link below, not sure when it was taken though. There is also a reference to the Poterz being built in Ireland and that intended production never took place there.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potez_840

[ronturner]

Good Thread.
Great result.
Thanks.